Sun., Dec. 11, 2016
10:00 AM
- 1:00 PM ESTLive Redskins PreGame Show with Kevin Sheehan and John RigginsKevin Sheehan gets the action started at 10am with the Official Redskins Radio Pregame Show presented by Koch – three hours of expert analysis, coaches interviews, key matchups, NFC East Game Day Previews, fantasy football updates and more!

Plus, this year Hall of Fame running back John Riggins will join Kevin in the broadcast booth during the final 90 minutes of the show, giving fans unparalleled pregame analysis for every Redskins game right up to kickoff.

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fane unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches, and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m./7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fane unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches, and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m./7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fane unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches, and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m./7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fane unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches, and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m./7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fane unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches, and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m./7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fane unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches, and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m./7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fane unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches, and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m./7:30 a.m. daily)

Flickr Photos

I had such hopes that the removed JumboTron would be sitting out in the concourse at FedExField, maybe hooked up to a cable box so I could sample The Price Is Right at thirty feet tall. I was right that it was sitting in the concourse, but it was in no shape to display any programming.

That’s the JumboTron.

I knew it wasn’t some sort of enormous cathode ray tube with a gigantic piece of glass in front of it, but I didn’t realize that it broke down into six hundred-ish pieces, each roughly the size of a shoebox. There are 24 of the things on each pallet, and there were 24 complete palette-loads in the concourse.

Each one of these modules is made up of smaller parts, which break down into smaller cells, each of which contains red, blue, and green LEDs (light emitting diodes). These LEDs essentially served the same function as pixels on a television: you adjust the primary colors to make up the enormous picture.

Here’s an article on how this all works, if you really want the details and exciting diagrams. Or, to be more accurate, how this all USED to work until it wound up stacked on pallets in the stadium concourse. Once the new HD videoboards are installed, all that information will likely be outdated and useless.

Oh, and for everyone who’s skeptical of calling the old screen a “Jumbotron,” click this picture to enlarge:

Yep. That’s a Sony JumboTron unit JTU-35A3L. It may not have seemed all that jumbo, but it was absolutely a JumboTron. (I was hopeful that having that information might actually help me find out some more about the thing, but I have no interesting in paying fifteen bucks for a manual.)

For now, though, this is where the JumboTron is: stacked up in the concourse, waiting to go to the big football stadium in the sky.

2 Responses
to “FedExField Goes HD, Part 3: The JumboTron In Pieces”

Just an observation – Jumbotrons of that age did not use LED technology – instead each stacking module was made up of 12 8×8 pixel specialised cathode ray tubes.
If you take the back off you will find a high voltage flyback transformer that looks almost identical to those in regular CRT TV’s, plus all the high voltage cabling.
Advances in efficient and more reliable LED technology have made this type of display obsolete in the same way that few people still use CRT monitors or TVs at home.